


Constellations on the Horizon

by JPWard



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Gen, Hermann has MS, Passing mention of ableism, Smoking, Will add tags as chapters are added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-23
Updated: 2015-07-13
Packaged: 2018-02-18 12:51:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2349050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JPWard/pseuds/JPWard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Newt knows the walls Hermann erects around himself are as thick and impenetrable as the parka he wears.  Even after three years of written correspondence and two years of working with the man, Newt's never seen them crack.  But now he's watching Hermann smoking and looking out at the ocean with <i>something</i> that looks like longing and - grief? - and Newt feels like he's accidentally stumbled onto the other side of the wall - and he doesn't know what he sees there."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The cool, female voice of the Hong Kong Shatterdome's PA system crackles to life:

"All members of Shaolin Rogue's ground crew, please report to docking bay D for jaeger re-entry. All members of Shaolin Rogue's ground crew, please report to docking bay D for jaeger re-entry."

It's nearly four in the morning, and Shaolin Rogue has just taken down a category three kaiju eight miles from the coast of Hong Kong. Despite the early hour, the K-science lab is operating near full capacity. Under the direction of Hermann and Newt, the science techs (mostly post-bacs from the University of Hong Kong) work with careful diligence, saturated in the pale blue glow of the computer terminals or spattered with the darker stains of kaiju viscera.

The initial data that LOCCENT streams down is more Hermann's domain: numbers on breach dilation and energy transfer, indicators of breach stability and clues to its nature. It's not until the battle's over and the carnage gets shipped in that Newt has his field day, but he's at his station working just the same. His computer terminal is set up as a monitor to the LOCCENT radio frequencies (compliments of Tendo), and the notebook in front of him is scrawled with the Ranger's descriptions of the kaiju's appearance and fighting tactics, which he listens to through a pair of old, tangled headphones.

Ten minutes after the call for Shaolin Rogue's ground crew is broadcasted, Hermann motions for a tech to continue monitoring the simulation he is running with the data from the latest event. Newt looks up from his hastily scribbled notes as Hermann stands and reaches for his cane. The tech takes over Hermann's place at the terminal.

"Not turning in early are you, Hermann?" Newt asks, yanking the headphones off his ears. It may be four in the morning, but with the amount of data they've got to process and submit reports on, sleep seems like an abstract concept rather than a legitimate possibility.

Hermann is fishing through the clothing on the coat tree in the back of the lab.

"Just going for a walk, Dr. Geiszler."

Hermann finds his parka (much too heavy for the light Hong Kong winter) and passes by Newt without looking at him on his way out of the lab.

It's been almost two years since they began working together in Hong Kong - long enough for Newt to know that it can't just be coincidence that the nights Hermann decides to "take a walk" are the nights when they take down a kaiju. Newt's pen taps an arrhythmic pattern against the lab table as he tries to concentrate on his work. 

_Fuck it._

Newt throws down his pen and retrieves his own jacket from the coat tree.

There really aren't too many possibilities when it comes to taking a stroll outside of the shatterdome. Unless Hermann is making his way to the docking bays (not likely, too many people), the only other option is the main level deck.

Newt jabs the call button for the elevator and stuffs his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. It's four in the goddamn morning, and not even the inadvisable amount of caffeine pumping through his veins can keep his eyelids from drooping from fatigue. Some of the ground crew personnel in maroon jumpsuits look like zombies as they shuffle past him in the direction of the docking bays.

The elevator arrives, and Newt ascends two levels to the main deck, empty but for two helicopters being prepped for flight. With the nighttime ocean breeze cool against his skin, he feels temporary relief from the tired haze overwhelming his brain.

On his left, the horizon is lightening in monochrome tones of gray. It's not dawn, not yet, but it will be soon. The breeze smells like sea salt and smog, and the sounds of voices and machinery further along on the side of the 'dome are slightly muffled by the churning of the harbor. By the railing that lines the perimeter of the deck, Hermann stands looking out over the water.

When Newt slides up next to him, Hermann jumps, not hearing Newt's approach over the noise of the water and the distant sound of the docking bay doors being drawn open. Hermann's eyes go wide, and his lips press into a thin, unreadable line at the sight of his colleague.

"Thought I'd join you," Newt says.

Hermann turns his face away and sighs, his breath steaming in the cold night air.

Except - the night _isn't_ that cold. Newt's nostrils flare to catch the scent, and he has to do a double take to find the cigaret that Hermann is trying to hide along the side of his body.

Hermann glances sideways at Newt, whose mouth is hanging open in shock.

"Flies, Newton."

Newt's jaw snaps shut.

"I didn't know you smoked," he says after a short, stunned silence.

"There's no reason you should have," Hermann rebukes, "I don't indulge enough for it to truly matter, anyway." He brings the cigaret to his lips, no longer trying to hide it, and takes a slow drag.

"I, uh, wouldn't have taken you for a nicotine guy."

Hermann exhales harshly.

"No one asked you to come out here, you know," he says.

Newt shrugs, rebuffing Hermann's strident tone, "Free world, man."

"I suppose."

Hermann takes another drag from his cigaret; his eyes are firmly fixed on the horizon. With the way the island of Tsing Yi is lit up behind them, there is little but the moon to see, even on a clear night like this. Only a few bright pinpoints of light shine down above them, but in the distance there are other lights dancing far out on the ocean. At first Newt thinks they're the lights of a tanker coming close to shore, but the colors and shape are all wrong. Then he sees how they're moving - their slow, ambulatory sway - and he realizes he's watching Shaolin Rogue plodding through the harbor towards the 'dome. Hermann exhales slowly, the smoke swept away quickly by the wind. He sighs, and it sounds wistful.

Newt knows the walls Hermann erects around himself are as thick and impenetrable as the parka he wears. Even after three years of written correspondence and two years of working with the man, Newt's never seen them crack. But now he's watching Hermann smoking and looking out at the ocean with _something_ that looks like longing and - grief? - and Newt feels like he's accidentally stumbled onto the other side of the wall - and he doesn't know what he sees there.

Normally, Newt is good at filling up silences, always has a line, a joke, a quick barb lined up to avoid the awkward pauses of conversation. But now it feels like all the words have been sucked from him like air through Hermann's cigaret. So he just leans against the railing next to Hermann, turning his gaze towards the massive jaeger, still small at this distance, as it makes its victorious trek back. They watch in silence until the jaeger is more than just pinpoints of moving light, until they can see the outline of its sleek body, until it is so close it is almost looming over them. 

It feels like it takes a long time, until Hermann's cigaret is a stub between his fingers.

When Shaolin Rogue is close enough that the water it's displacing begins to slosh up onto the deck, Hermann drops the cigaret butt to the damp concrete and grinds it under the toe of his shoe. Newt's words come back.

"Smoking _and_ littering? I didn't think you had it in you, Hermann."

Hermann scoffs and starts walking back towards the 'dome with Newt keeping in step beside him.

"We do have work to do, you know," Hermann says.

"Hey, I wasn't the one who came out here for a smoke break."

"Yes, and I wasn't the one who followed for no other reason than, I assume, to be a nuisance."

"Uh, maybe I just wanted some _fresh air,_ dude."

"Oh please, you thrive on the fumes of those hazardous samples like a cockroach in trash, Newton."

They slip inside as the doors open for three helipad workers joining their crews on the deck.

"At least _I'm_ not the one inhaling chalk dust like asbestos. Seriously, how do you not have, like, chalk-lung or something by now?"

The heavy metal doors of the 'dome slide in place behind them.


	2. Gods and Monsters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapters which contain flashbacks and memories will be given titles. Chapters without titles are chronological continuations of the main story.

“It is said that men may not be the dreams of the Gods, but rather that the Gods are the dreams of men.” (Carl Sagan, _Cosmos_ )

 

On the television every network is displaying a shaky aerial image of the San Fransisco Golden Gate Bridge. Beneath the iconic structure a giant creature emerges from the waters of the bay, and the bridge, which has withstood decades of storms and earthquakes and human traffic, is now crumbling under the force of the great, alien body. Cars tumble into the water; debris hurtles through the air.

Twenty people are crowded into the math wing's small lounge. They huddle around the television screen like they don't all have laptops that could pull up a stream of the same footage in less than a minute. There's an unspoken solidarity among them, packed together in the room and wrapped up in their own kernel of existence.

The monster opens its mouth and issues a terrible roar.

“My _God_ ,” someone croaks, and it is the only sound in the room. 

Hermann thinks that whatever God there might be, they certainly seem to have abandoned them now.

Half the world watches the creature in terrified disbelief, and the other half will wake to find that a nightmare has surfaced from the ocean.

 

_  
God, his father explains to him, is like the people Hermann reads about in his fairy tales: God does not exist. He exists in books, and in people's heads, but he is not real. If there is a grand design to the universe, it will be explained not by God but by Science._

_Hermann, young and wide-eyed, nods as his father orates. He learns early on to put his faith in science and numbers and logic, and that believing in anything else is the stock of the weak-minded.  
_


	3. Chapter 3

Newt's pealing laughter is bordering on hysterical - and not the funny kind. Several LOCCENT techs shoot undisguised glances of disapproval his way. 

"You have to be kidding me - you're fucking kidding me, right?" Newt's leg bounces erratically as he leans against Tendo's desk. 

Tendo sits back in his chair and spreads his hands out, palms up, "Can't make this up," he says, shaking his head.

"No way, man! No. Fucking. _Way_." Newt picks distractedly at the leather band around his left wrist. "That proposal was absolute bullshit when it was submitted two years ago, and now you're telling me they're actually going to _fund_ it?" 

"That's the word."

"Whose word? Sources, Tendo."

Newt knows anything coming from Tendo is as good as reading it from an official memo - better, even, because Tendo doesn't come with a steaming side of bureaucratic-political bullshit - but still, Newt needs to know that this is more than an awful, tasteless joke.

Tendo shrugs. "I'm in the good graces of someone sitting on the UN general assembly. Says the security council's pushing the project through."

"And where the hell are they getting the funding? Last I heard, the UN didn't have a couple billion dollars to throw around." Newt's fingers leave the fraying leather band to skitter along the ink on his arm.

"That's why the UN's employing an age-old tricks of finance: reallocation."

"Reallocation from where?"

Tendo picks up a pen and twirls it between his fingers, "Don't work yourself up about it. I can guarantee this project won't last more than six months. The Jaeger Program's the only project that hasn't crashed and burned during implementation - there's no way this one's going to do any better."

"Reallocation from _where_ , Tendo?" Newt presses, though he's pretty sure he knows the answer and is not happy about it.

"Well, we _are_ the only PPDC program that ever got off the ground, so . . ." Tendo throws his pen into the air, goes to catch it, and misses.

Newt is incredulous, "You're telling me they're funneling money away from _us_ to fund the world's dumbest Lego project?!"

"Come on. They haven't even started construction yet. It's not the end of the . . . well, technically I guess it is the end of the world." Tendo grins in spite of the circumstances. Newt does not.

" _Jesus_ \- how can you joke about this? The UN thinks containment is the solution?" Newt is gesticulating wildly as he tries to punctuate his anger. "What about continuing research, huh? How are we supposed to learn more about the kaiju if all of our data is stuck behind a fucking _wall?!_ " 

In the particularly emphatic downswing of hands that accompanies his words, Newt's wrist collides with a mug sitting on the edge of Tendo's desk. Tendo lurches forward to snatch the mug from its sudden floor-destined trajectory.

"Watch it, man," Tendo says as he cradles the powder blue cup protectively, "Favorite mug here."

Newt's working himself up so much he doesn't hear him; nervous electricity sparks underneath his skin.

"Every brick in that wall is going to mean funding cut from us," Newt barrels on, his tone frantic, "They'll cut the research divisions first - they think just because we're not the ones going head-to-head with kaiju that we're _expendable!_ Why bother trying to _understand_ the threat, when we can quarantine it and hope it just _goes away_?!"

Newt's voice is quickly leaping up registers. There's a million little rubber bands being stretched and stretched and _stretched_ inside his head, and any second now they're going to _snap_. 

Suddenly Tendo is standing next to him and putting a steadying hand on his shoulder.

"Newt, buddy, take a few deep breaths, huh?"

"Wh - Tendo, listen. _I_ am not overreacting, _this_ is overre - "

Tendo grasps Newt's upper arm and steers him out of the comm center.

"C'mon," Tendo says, ignoring the litany of high-pitched protests from Newt, "Take a walk with me."

When they're out in the hall, Tendo spins a resisting Newt around to face him, plants both hands on Newt's shoulders, and says,

" _Breathe_."

Newt scrubs his hands vigorously against his face like he can slow the spinning of his mind inside his skull.

"Aaaugh - fuck - I'm calm, I'm calm, okay?"

Tendo quirks an eyebrow, and Newt realizes his palms are sweating; he can feel the slickness left against his forehead and his cheeks. Groaning first in frustration, he takes a large breath, holds it, and exhales dramatically. 

"Good," Tendo says, "Do it again."

Newt is attracting curious glances from the shatterdome employees who pass by them in the hall. This is _so_ not what he signed up for when he walked into LOCCENT during his lunch break. He tries to shut out the chatter of the hallway and the comm center, tries to stop the floor from spinning under him as the implications of what Tendo's told him spin out endlessly in his mind.

It's true, the kaiju are getting stronger and _better_ at what they do. Lima lost Diablo Intercept not even a month ago, and the beating Eden Assassin took before that . . . the Jaeger Program isn't exactly inspiring the PPDC's confidence right now.

What if they can't keep up with the kaiju? What if the UN decides to pull the rest of their funding? What if one day a letter shows up dismissing him from his position and suddenly he's scrambling for data from reticent sources like he was at the beginning of the war? What if - 

_Fuck, keep it together, Newt!_

Focus on breathing, right? In. Out. In. Out. Slow, deep breaths. The tightness in his chest makes him feel like he should be gasping for air, but if he does, hyperventilation is next. Keep it controlled. In. Out.

 _Okay, this is fine, I can do this, but holy fuck, does everyone really have to keep_ staring?

Even Tendo is looking at him with focused concern - Tendo would never admit it, but he's been mother henning Newt since the day they met at the academy. The first time Newt's anxiety started spiraling out of control when Tendo was around, Tendo almost called medical fearing that Newt was having a heart attack. Newt laughs at the memory - or chokes out an approximation of a laugh that sounds like his windpipe is being twisted about.

"You're safe; keep breathing," Tendo says. Newt does.

As the worst of the panic passes, Newt manages to let go of Tendo (when did he grab a hold of Tendo's shirt?). " 's fine. I'm fine," Newt says, running a hand through his hair. "That hasn't happened in . . . a while."

The look of concern still lingers on Tendo's features, but a LOCCENT tech is calling urgently to Tendo in Cantonese from down the hallway. Tendo looks quickly from Newt to the tech and then back to Newt.

"You're sure you're okay?" he asks, looking guilty.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. You've got stuff to take care of; don't worry about me. But next time _warn_ a guy before dropping something like that on him."

Tendo gives Newt's shoulders a final squeeze before letting him go.

"That I will, brother," Tendo promises, and then disappears with the tech into LOCCENT.

This is . . . not what he needed today. Or _any_ day at that. Newt takes the elevator down to the k-science floor and hopes that, at the height of lunch hour, the lab will be empty.

It's not.

There are two voices coming from the lab when Newt gets off the elevator. He recognizes the first as Hermann's, but it's not until he's halfway down the hall that the synapses in his brain make the connection on the second. Lars Gottlieb - Hermann's father. The realization makes him stop short only a few meters from the door. Newt's had the misfortune of meeting the man when Lars was passing through Hong Kong a year ago on a circuit inspection of all the active shatterdomes. As tumultuous as Newt and Hermann's own working relationship is, compared to his father, Hermann is practically a saint.

". . . program will soon become obsolete," Lars is saying, his voice distorted by the audio channel of a video call, "If you were smart, you'd abandon it and come work for me on the coastal wall project."

"I don't understand." That's Hermann's voice.

Newt hears a scoff.

"You wrote the predictive model, Hermann. You should know better than anyone that the increasing frequency of attacks and magnitude of the kaiju will inevitably surpass the capabilities of the jaegers."

"But we can continue to improve the jaeger's capabilities; there are other avenues we have yet to explore with the technology. You are one of the program's founders; can you really abandon it so easily?"

Fuck, wait, he probably shouldn't be listening to this.

"At the time, the Jaeger Program was logically our best option. This is no longer the case, and while I have invested a great deal in the program, I'm not so attached to it as to turn a blind eye to its approaching failure. I don't hold onto idealistic fantasies about my work, Hermann. I'm surprised you seem to be burdened by it."

 _Ouch,_ Newt thinks, and he knows that he _definitely_ shouldn't be listening to this.

Lars' voice continues,

"It may not be apparent now, but trust me, the jaeger program will not remain funded for long."

"I see . . ." Hermann says, and there is a short silence before he continues, "While I appreciate your call - and your offer - I'm afraid I have work to be doing."

"I'm offering you a way off that sinking ship of a program, Hermann. Think on it, and I'm sure you will come to your senses."

"Good afternoon, father."

"Good afternoon."

Newt hears the sound of the call being terminated and a chair being pushed back. For a few terrifying moments he has a vision of Hermann emerging from the lab to find him loitering suspiciously just outside the door. He can already see Hermann's eyes going wide in surprise and then turning icy, the muscle in his jaw jumping as he stares Newt down with cold disapproval. 

But Hermann doesn't leave. Newt hears instead the faint sound of chalk scratching against a blackboard. 

It takes a couple of false starts for Newt to work up the courage to walk into the lab. He has to psych himself up a bit because it takes a lot of energy to try and look like he's _not_ trying to look like he didn't just eavesdrop on a personal conversation. 

When he finally walks in, though, Hermann doesn't even turn around. In fact, he's just kind of staring at the chalkboard, chalk poised but no longer writing. Newt knows enough about applied math and Hermann's work to know that the portion of the board Hermann's staring at is part of his predictive model. The predictive model that is telling him, like divination in chalk and numbers, that there is a day coming when the jaegers will no longer be enough to stop the kaiju.

Sitting at his own computer terminal, Newt wonders if this is the moment he will remember, when he looks back on it, as the moment when everything started going to hell.


	4. The Shadow of His Father

“We are star stuff that has taken its destiny into its own hands.” (Carl Sagan, _Cosmos_ )

 

When a feasible solution for the war against the kaiju is proposed, it comes from a scientist.

Jasper Schoenfeld believes that man can create and pilot machines strong enough to defeat kaiju in hand-to-hand combat. The idea sounds incredible - impossible - but Schoenfeld is soon joined by Caitlin Lightcap, a neuroscientist and the creator of the Pons System. A man named Stacker Pentecost backs them, and when the PPDC green lights their work, Hermann's own father is one of the project's founders.

The Jaeger Program is born.

Hermann himself heads the team writing the code that will run the Mark 1 jaegers. Stress is high, especially when time is measured in lives lost, and everything is riding on the success of being able to meld together the minds of humans and machines. While the pilots already have minds of their own, it's Hermann's job to create the machines'.

By mid-2015, the project is relocated to Kodiak Island where the Jaeger Academy is established. The first class of hopeful pilot candidates arrive to populate the academy halls, and among them is the first generation of rangers, yet to be chosen from their ranks. Thankfully, Hermann spends little time with the testosterone-run jockeys that make up most of their class. They're fueled by the thrill of the danger, the violence, the need to prove something to a world that doesn't care much about them. Unsuitable pilots with their egos and hero-complexes, the majority of them won't make it through the first stage of training.

Hermann, for one, cannot wait until they are weeded out; put overgrown boys in a pack, and suddenly not one is above schoolyard politics. He considers it a small miracle that his cane (newly acquired, begrudgingly used) hasn't been kicked out from under him on the days he is bad enough to need it. 

Today, Hermann thinks, he does not need it. He wakes up with sand in his limbs, his body weighed down and sluggish, but he attributes the fatigue to the long evenings spent working late in front of a computer screen, de-bugging code into the odd hours of the night. It is a symptom of his life, he tells himself, not of his condition. Besides, it has only been two months since his last attack, and surely another would not come so soon. When he leaves for the lab, the cane that leans against his bedside table remains behind.

A mistake, it turns out, because by lunchtime the fatigue has gotten worse, as if the metaphorical weight of the world has found a literal home on his shoulders. He is in the mess hall when he starts to feel his hold on his balance slipping. As he deposits his empty tray, the floor beneath him tilts slowly, and his body sways with it. He has to steady himself with a hand against the wall, pretending to check the display on his phone as he fights off the vertigo.

Even when the floor stops moving, Hermann knows his gait is awkward; it takes what seems an enormous amount of effort to get his legs moving normally. In the hall outside the cafeteria, a group of ranger candidates pass him on their way to the simulators. There is snickering among them, and Hermann's cheeks and the palms of his hands prickle with hot embarrassment. He hears words being passed around that he can't quite make out, but he knows they are not said kindly. Laughter ricochets like bullets down the hallway.

 _Go ahead and laugh,_ he thinks as he rounds a corner, grateful to be out of sight, _it's because of me that your precious jaegers are more than useless heaps of metal._

He makes his way unsteadily back to the lab, bristling at anyone who glances his way and cursing the fact that his cane is on the other side of the facility. As much as he resents his need for it, he would bear his colleagues curious stares if it meant preventing the humiliation of an ungraceful fall in the crowded hallways or bustling lab.

The lab, when he arrives, is nearly empty, most of the staff still out for lunch. Sitting at a lab table near the door, Caitlin Lightcap is swiping through e-mails on her phone. With circles under her eyes and nails bitten to the quick, Hermann wonders how long it's been since she, since any of them, has gotten a full nights sleep. 

Lightcap turns toward Hermann when she hears the sound of his footsteps, but her eyes remain on her phone's screen as she taps twice and begins typing.

"Dr. Gottlieb, we need to discuss the changes to the neural relay protocol," she says.

 _Relay protocol?_ Hermann thinks, grasping the edge of the nearest table for support. He has been working on the dual pilot interface for the past two weeks. Before that, he had handed off the nearly finished protocol to - 

Lightcap glances up from her phone. "Oh - Hermann."

The penny drops, and Lightcap blinks in surprise as she realizes her mistake. Hermann's knuckles turn white against the table.

"I'm looking for your father," she says.

_Of course._

"Know where I can find him?"

Hermann does his best not to snap at her. Lightcap is certainly not the first to mistake him for his father; the Gottlieb family resemblance is strong between them, much to Hermann's annoyance. 

"I believe he's at the proving grounds with Dr. Schoenfeld," Hermann says.

Lightcap scoffs, "Thanks for the heads up, Jasper," she murmurs, admonishing the absent man. She sends a quick text and slides her phone into her pocket as she stands to leave. "If Dr. Banjeree comes by looking for me, let her know I'm meeting with Dr. Gottlieb at the proving grounds."

"I will be sure to do so," Hermann promises, managing to hold onto his air of civility even as his frustration mounts.

Lightcap is already halfway out the door, but she calls, "Thanks, Hermann!" over her shoulder before disappearing down the hall.

Hermann sighs; he is, as he has always been, in the shadow of his father.

He carefully lowers himself into the chair at his workstation as the other engineers start to trickle back into the lab. He feels as though he is pulling his limbs through water, and his brief conversation with Lightcap does nothing to improve his mood. _Changes to the relay protocol,_ he seethes, _there was nothing bloody wrong with it._

Pulling up a section of code that has been vexing him for days, he works with a viscous determination that, for now, blocks out everything else. The other engineers, recognizing that look, steer well clear of him.

Lost in the sea of code, Hermann does not look up when an unfamiliar figure wearing a military uniform enters the lab. He only barely registers the movement in his peripheral as his eyes dart across the screen, so he startles when a voice, suddenly right next to him, speaks to him with all the natural timbre of authority,

"Excuse me. I'm looking for Dr. Schoenfeld."

Tired of playing messenger for people more important than him, Hermann huffs as his concentration is broken. He looks up at the man addressing him.

Though Hermann has never met him personally, there are few people now who _wouldn't_ recognize the tall, commanding figure of the man in front of him. When the media needed a front man to represent the Jaeger Program, someone the public could remember the name of and put their trust behind, the ex-Royal Air Force pilot had been an easy choice. Badges flash on the breast of the man's uniform, and the PPDC name tag reads 'Stacker Pentecost'.

Hermann opens his mouth, closes it, and then says,

"Dr. Schoenfeld is at the proving grounds, most likely until late tonight."

Pentecost nods, a curt incline of his head. "Thank you." 

"Of course," Hermann says, quickly turning back to his work.

Instead of leaving, Pentecost remains where he is, studying Hermann, who does not appreciate being watched.

"Is there something else I can help you with?" Hermann offers, letting a small amount of irritation color his tone as he turns back to Pentecost.

"Dr. Hermann Gottlieb," Pentecost says, the identification both a statement and a question. "Am I correct?"

Hermann falters. As far as he can remember, he has never been in the same room as Pentecost, much less talked to the man. The recognition takes him by surprise.

"Yes, that's right," Hermann says, slightly flummoxed.

"Stacker Pentecost." Pentecost extends his hand, and Hermann takes it. "I've heard much about your work. We're glad to have you on board, Doctor." The other man's grip is firm as he shakes Hermann's hand. 

"Thank you, sir."

Pentecost nods again, turns, and leaves, following the path that Lightcap had taken minutes before. Hermann watches him go. When he turns back to his computer, Pentecost's words are playing on loop in his mind, and though the fatigue in his limbs is still there, there is a lightness in his chest that he hasn't felt since before the war began.

_  
At a young age, Hermann discovers his penchant for manipulating numbers. Of all the subjects he studies, mathematics comes as easily as learning his mother tongue. By age 10, he is taking the most advanced calculus class offered by the local high school. While others his age struggle to master complex fractions, Hermann learns differentiation and integration. He also learns, with more certainty than the theorems and theories, that he is to follow in his father's footsteps._

_Hermann stares at the ground and shuffles his feet as his father looks over the results of his latest exam. Even though the subject matter is far advanced for his age, Hermann's score had been nearly perfect - nearly. The large, red mark on the final problem had set Hermann's heart racing when he saw it. His heart is hammering now, as his father flips through the pages of the exam. When the pages stop rustling, Hermann does not look up, but he feels his father's frown like a brand, heated by the fire of that angry red mark._

_"What happened here, Hermann?" his father asks, brandishing the page._

_"It was a mistake," Hermann says, small and miserable, "I'm sorry."_

_"You can do better than this," his fathers admonishes, and Hermann winces, "This was careless. I'm sure you will do better next time, yes?"_

_"Yes, father," Hermann says and takes the exam that is handed back to him._

_In the room that he shares with Bastien, Hermann adds the exam to the pile of them he keeps in his desk (it feels wrong, somehow, to throw them out). Most of them bear perfect scores, but it's the few, like this one, blemished with his mistakes that weigh on him._

_He sits on his bed, eyes burning, and tells himself that next time he will do better. He_ has _to do better, he thinks, as tears drip onto his shirt, so that he can be smart like his father, his father who does not make mistakes.  
_


End file.
